The Smokers' Corner

Fact:  Japan is changing.
Proof:  Smokers are losing their "rights."

As recently as twenty years ago, smokers could light up while waiting for a train, on sidewalks, in restaurants, and in most public places.  The given, the fact that smoking was a part of the culture, wasn't questioned.  I first noticed this change, that smokers could not  pull out a cigarette wherever they wanted, as I stepped out of the arrival gate at the airport in Narita.  I knew something was different.  The air smelled different.  The cloud of smoke I was so accustomed to wasn't there.   I looked around and saw the usual crowd of smokers standing in a cluster far away from others.  Huh.  This was new.

Since that day, I have noticed continual changes in how Japan accepts, rather doesn't accept smokers.  The same crowed of smokers at Narita are now clustered inside a square box.  Sidewalks are dotted with cartoons of banned cigarette stubs.  Street signs have popped up all over Tokyo saying "keep our town clean" and "don't walk and smoke" and loud speakers announcing the evils of cigarette smoke.

Major changes like this in Japan don't take place over night.  The fact that changes have occurred to this extent is to be commended.  The good news is, if smokers can be relegated to a box, a corner, a section of the office, then pretty much anything is possible here.  I don't say this lightly.  Smoking in Japan was a normal part of life.  That it is not today is huge.  Facts like this beg the question what else is possible in Japan?